finished art project

Well I have run out of ideas on how to change the beginning of this so will just submit it as it stands.

final project progress

So I am almost complete with the project. I am not 100% happy with the beginning scene of the movie but am coming to a creative blank so it may just stay as is. I created a fictitous college named consumption university. The story behind the story is that this is a college sponsored video that is released to recruit new students. The college's sole appeal is that it encourages partying. I created a logo design for the college as well and also made an animation for the beginning of the video that represents the school. Here are a few samples of the artwork. Everything was drawn in illustrator and colored in photoshop. I used different brushes to draw but mostly the caligraphy set worked best for me.

 I also drew an old style tv. Which is here...

 Here are the main character drawings that I did..

The unmotivated kid that goes to college is based on my middle son Jacob. Here is his image

I have some other things drawn as well like pizza boxes, beer, piggy bank and of course my character which I already posted.

project proposal

Project Title:  Little Johnny Goes To College

Project Summary: A creative and humorous look at college admissions videos. 

Project Format:   The format of this project will be mp4 video with sound.

Software Applications: With this project I will use Adobe Illustrator for drawing the characters and Adobe Photoshop for colorizing and editing the drawn and photo compositions.

Project Goal: The goal of this project is to shed some light on the stressful act of choosing the right college and then applying. I became encouraged to focus on this topic not only from my experience at ESC but also because my eldest son is beginning film school in the fall. The process of his schooling is far more stressful than my own, however shedding some light and making a few smiles in these brutal times is always a plus.

Presentation: My final project will be submitted to my blog with a link provided for all to see.

  A few early drawings of characters that I did for this project.

 These represent my motivation for 2 of my characters.

Here are my drawn renditions......

completed project

 What I did with this project was using photoshop, after effects, poser and final cut pro, compiled a video telling the story of an alien that falls into the lap of an unsuspecting home (quite literally!) who takes him in as part of their extended family. I used photoshop for all photo editing, masking and manipulations ( there were tons!). I used after effects for all animation and effects. Poser was used to create the alien as well as the ships. Final cut pro was used to compile the still and motion clips and export into a final movie. I also had my boys sing a very very rough backing track in audacity and added an effect on my oldest sons voice to sound like the alien.

 The compositions that I did in Photoshop began as pics taken over the past year, either on vacation,my sons baseball game or recently around the house. I then worked in poses of the alien, using poser 8 to get the alignment as close as possible. Then I worked within the layers in photoshop, editing and using filters. In some of the images I removed backgrounds and replaced them with different ones that adjusted the overall dimension or feeling of the photo. To add the background movements, I created alpha channels and saved as png files. I then imported them into after effects and created the motion key frames.

 I have been attempting to upload the file onto my blog directly as well as through youtube for a few days now. II get 65% complete and my isp locks me. I am trying my best to compress the file so it will upload without compromising the quality too much, if I can not get this to upload in the next hour I am waving my white flag and will post still shots of every scene. I am completely frustrated with the entire satellite internet deal!

Completed

What I did with this project was using photoshop, after effects, poser and final cut pro, compiled a video telling the story of an alien that falls into the lap of an unsuspecting home (quite literally!) who takes him in as part of their extended family. I used photoshop for all photo editing, masking and manipulations ( there were tons!). I used after effects for all animation and effects. Poser was used to create the alien as well as the ships. Final cut pro was used to compile the still and motion clips and export into a final movie. I also had my boys sing a very very rough backing track in audacity and added an effect on my oldest sons voice to sound like the alien.

2 more clips

these 2 clips are from the part of the video where it shows togetherness and bonding between the alien and kids. I know I am retarded. I know. The cat was downloaded from google and I did some surgery on his arm in photoshop so that I can have it on a separate layer. With that I could rotate it in after effects creating the jerky strum effect. I also masked out the basket in after effects so the cat could rise up. The alien was again given life in poser 7, my kids are my own creation, however my son on the left was cut out, copied and placed on his own layer so that I can change the depth of field some. Oh and the singing was my two sons shown and the alien voice was my eldest son. I messed with the pitch and flange was added in audacity.

here is the kids playing xbox with the alien. As you can see, the alien changes many things when he is near. In photoshop I replaced the ceiling with a house of cards feel that I snapped with my cam. The clock was edited in photoshop as well, cutting the hands and numbers and saving everything on separate layers allowed me to change the face's color and strobe it in after effects. The fire and video game playing were also added in after effects after cutting the sections from the wood stove and tv screen out in photoshop and creating the alpha channel by saving as png.

competition video

 Here is the completed house with ufo,alien,smoke, debris etc. I am working on a much longer version but will most likely not be able to post it due to the worst internet available to man. Due to the time invested though, I will take some still frames and add them to the blog later to show some of the other scenes I worked on.

design competition assignment

So my initial thought was to take a few pics of my house and create a motion overlay with a ufo, alien and some other effects tossed in. What is coming out is something a bit different, yet much cooler in my opinion. What I did so far, popped a pic of my house in photoshop and did a little editing. I wanted to add depth so I added a tree and little boy that I cropped out from a pic I found online. After getting the shadows right I cut the skyline, found a pic of a fiery space looking sky and used that. Then for the motion, I took a ufo that was created in cinema 4d as well as an alien from poser 8, made the ship fly over, creating a change as it passes eventually losing the alien who surprisingly adds a nice hole in my roof as he descends. I did all motion as well as the smoke from chimney, debris and dust cloud from hole in roof with after effects. This is the first 10th of what will be the final project. Also these shots are all stills from photoshop before the ufo and alien and all other effects were added.

 this is the initial frame in the movie. Child and tree in foreground were added to original.

 this is as the ufo fly's over. I know, ufo is not in still shot. trust me though hahaha

 this is still of background after alien crashes through roof.

this is the original photo

Album cover redesign

So after scouring google images for a cool cover to re-design, I found this cover to the album The Isolation Game by an Italian death metal group by the name of Disarmonia Mundi. I really liked the monster on the original design as well as the dark feeling ( halloween is right around the corner afterall). SO I began by re-drawing the monster and background sillhouette in illustrator by using the pen and blob brushes. After I had it all in vector, I imported the image into photoshop and worked on shadowing and fixing stuff. While working on it, I had the idea to mirror the image and have one hand hold the human heart while the other had the original butterfly. I think it goes with the overall dark theme as well as fitting in with the loner vibe that a title like The Isolation Game puts off.

                                                            The Original cover design

                                                                The vector drawing

re-creating in Illustrator

Original jpeg from the interwebs

My rendition,

Ok so our first creative assignment is here! Time to try out the new tablet and see if I can draw something that resembles the original picture I chose. For this one, I decided to re-draw a roswell alien that I found a jpeg of online. I did the rough sketching in Illustrator and then using Photoshop I built the layers a bit more to add depth and make the eye's have a glossy-ish look. After finishing this I realize that I really need to practice my drawing skills. Either way, here she is.........

Vector Drawn

Here is the basic vector image converted to a png. I drew the image with the pen and added some lines with the blob brush as well.

Here is the finished vector drawing with a city mirrored into his eyes. I brought my finished pdf into ps5, layered his eyes and used overlay on the city to create the reflection.

Artist Statement

 Being an artistic person, my creativity spans many different mediums. In the digital art realm, I consider myself an old novice. Although I have dabbled in several different applications over the years, I find myself the most comfortable within the contours of Adobe Photoshop. Whether I am designing an album cover, re-drawing a character for a cartoon that my son and I are working on, or creating backgrounds for video projects, I draw from my heart and always put myself into my work.

  One of the other art forms that intrigues me is video production and editing. My hope is that while merging the two art forms, I will become a stronger and more proficient digital artist while creating truly realistic and imaginative projects.  One skill that I feel I have become fairly good at is re-drawing landscapes as a cartoon. For our project, I went around our town and took snapshots of various landmarks and drew them over with my tablet in Photoshop.

  My passion for digital media has also been passed on to my children. While working on different projects, my wife and children are always excited to contribute. For example, several years ago my eldest son wanted to make a Star Wars film. We blue screened the entire interior of our home and the entire family donned costumes to participate in the project. One of our summer projects this past year was to re-master the original footage and include more special effects by using Adobe After Effects.

 So in all, while my art may hopefully transform into a skill that can generate revenue, the true blessing is the way that it has transferred to my children and allowed them to create and think away from the norm. The fact that the several projects that everyone has participated in, has allowed the family to become closer knit and for me that is an art form in itself.

New Blog For Class

So a new semester begins and this time I am challenged with a new home which as magnificent as it is, so peaceful and serene, a great creative place on 117 acres I feel like I am completely living off the grid. My only source for internet is my trusty droid ( not r2-d2 or c3po, although that would be pretty fresh) or the ever disappointing satelite internet. Originally upon signing up for my classes this term, I imagined that my biggest challenge would be my arch-nemesis algebra, little did I know just loading a page in safari would be such a time consuming task! Either way, the semester begins and to that I look forward to filling this blog with some creativity.